Punishment for vandals

If you ask 1,000 people around Jakarta whether vandals should be punished you would get 1,000 replies of "Yes!" If you then ask how they should be punished, you will get many different answers.

Letters from many of your readers indicate that they mistakenly believe Singapore's choices were to let the vandals off completely or to beat them with a stick. Of course Singapore has a range of severe punishments which could be applied swiftly and with certainty. In the case of Michael Fay, he also got some of those, and deservedly so. But did he have to be beaten with a stick in order to be punished? A sentence of three moths in Changi Prison is hardly a coddling punishment. Three months of cleaning streets and buildings, likewise.

Osaka is also a very safe and clean city. Women have no fear of walking home alone at night; there is no graffiti in the subways. Yet Osaka authorities do not beat teenaged offenders.

Swift, certain punishment, yes. Barbaric beating, no. The sight of teenagers in work gangs along Jakarta streets cleaning graffiti off walls and buildings might work wonders as a deterrent.

GARY GENTRY

Jakarta